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Greetings from London. My name is Bill and my current amateur radio call sign is M0HBR. My home call is N2CQR. I was introduced to Amateur Radio by that great author and story teller, Jean Shepherd, K2ORS. "Shep" had an AM radio program in New York during the early 1970s. My father and I listened to the show. Shep often told stories of his teenage adventures in ham radio. Soon I followed Shepherd's example and found myself taking old television sets apart and throwing strange wires into the branches of trees. With the assistance of the members of New York's Crystal Radio Club (W2DMC), I got my license in 1973 at age 14. I acquired a Drake 2-B and a Hallicrafters HT-37 (the same ones you see in the QSL card above). In what I'm sure is a very common occurrence, ham radio fell by the wayside as life's other demands crowded in. My job required a lot of travel. During this period, the 2B and the HT-37 dutifully followed me around the world. They collected a lot of dust, but, alas, they did not go on the air. In 1992 I moved to Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. One afternoon, while browsing through the magazine rack at a local hotel, I came across a copy of "73" magazine. Looking through it, something of the old spark was rekindled. I acquired a reciprocal license. (My Mom had watched out for me and - while I worked in Central America - got the FCC to renew my U.S. license. I had been issued the call N2CQR.) In anticipation, I pulled the old gear out of storage and began to set up a station. Much contact cleaner was applied. Soon I found myself once again running wires through the branches of trees, this time in the Dominican Republic. My Dominican ticket arrived in March 1993 and I was back on the air. Soon, my parents in New York started to once again find strange post cards from far-off places in their mailbox. I became a member of Radio Club Dominicano (HI8RCD); there I found the same friendly spirit that I'd encountered in the Crystal Radio Club. Some things are universal. In an effort to brush up on technical knowledge, I started to build some low power radio gear. In September 1993, I experienced the real thrill of putting my first home brew transmitter on the air. (It was the VXO 6 Watter from "QRP Classics"). I had so much fun with the 20 meter rig, I built a second one for 30 meters. In 1997 I built a single conversion superhet receiver to accompany the 20 meter transmitter. On January 6, 1994, the old HT-37 and 2B entered the space age with a successful contact through the Russian ham radio satellite RS-12. I also used RS-10, keying an old 2 meter FM rig. In March 1995, I had what was almost certainly my most interesteing contacts: over a period of several months, I spoke directly to Astronaut Norm Thagard on 2 meter FM; Norm was operating from the MIR Space Station. In July 1996 my tour in the Dominican Republic ended and I moved the station 1000 miles north. I was N2CQR/4 from 1996 until September 2000. During this time two hamshack assistants were born. At that point we moved 2600 miles east
to the
beautiful island of Sao Miguel in the Azores. Here I enjoyed working on
homebrew 17 meter phone rigs, under the callsign CU2JL, and
also worked with the International Space Station, and PC-SAT, a
satellite built by midshipmen at Annapolis. In August
2003 we moved to London where I became M0HBR (Home BrewRadio). I now
operate
out of a small attic workshop/radio shack. Best of 73's. Bill MOHBR CU2JL N2CQR. |
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